Once Before (+18) Chapter 8
⚠️ DISCLAIMER & CONTENT WARNING: This is a work of fiction that, while it may reference real public figures, does not represent their real behavior, actions, or relationships; all events and dialogues are entirely invented for entertainment, with no disrespect or harm intended, and any resemblance to real events is purely coincidental. This story contains mature themes and is intended for readers 18+ only; reader discretion is advised. It is also a reader-insert narrative, meaning YOU (Y/N – Your Name) are the protagonist in a fictional relationship with a celebrity character.
Chapter 8: Shared Custody
The set is still breathing behind me as I walk toward the trailers. Lights still on. Crew dismantling equipment. Someone laughing too loudly near catering. The metallic noise of a structure being moved on the other side of the studio and beneath all of that, still clinging to my skin like a second uncomfortable layer, the feeling of Richard too close to me all day.
I don’t turn around. I don’t need to in order to know he’s still back there somewhere on set. Rachel still talking to the technical team. Sam reviewing takes on the monitors. Robert probably stealing somebody else’s food.
Hollywood continuing its machinery, even while emotionally several people inside it are standing two inches away from collapse.
I let the air out slowly as I climb the trailer steps. I’m exhausted. Not physically. Worse. That strange exhaustion that appears when you spend too many hours trying to control something your body insists on remembering on its own.
I rest my hand against the door just before opening it.
Harper’s voice comes from behind me. I turn around. She’s walking through the improvised parking area between trailers with a coffee in one hand and her sunglasses still on even though it’s already nighttime. Of course. Harper wears sunglasses the way other people wear armor.
"Did you come to finish ruining my emotional stability or are you just bored?" I ask.
She stops in front of me. Studies me for barely a second. There it is again. That expression of hers. The look of someone too intelligent to pretend she isn’t watching a slow-motion car crash.
"You look awful," she says finally.
"Thank you. What a relief to have such maternal friends."
"I’m not maternal. I’m observant. You two are starting to look dangerously comfortable inside the disaster."
I open the trailer anyway. Harper walks in behind me without asking permission because she stopped asking approximately nine years ago. I throw my bag onto the small couch beside the window.
She stays standing. That alone already makes me nervous. Harper only stays still when she came prepared to say something important.
"This year I want both of you there."
I don’t understand for half a second. Then I do.
And my entire body tightens.
Harper raises an eyebrow.
"You didn’t even ask which party."
"Because I already know which one."
Her birthday. Of course. The ridiculous tradition. The unspoken agreement. The most absurd emotional shared custody arrangement in modern history. Harper sets the coffee down on the table.
"No. Listen to me first."
"It’s been ten years. I’m tired of organizing birthdays like you’re children from a traumatic divorce."
"That’s exactly what we are."
"Emotionally? Absolutely."
That makes her close her eyes for barely a second. Because she knows I’m right.
The first birthday after the breakup. Richard arrived first. I arrived forty minutes late believing he wouldn’t be there. Nobody warned us. Nobody thought it would be necessary. I still remember the uncomfortable silence when I walked into the bar. Robert stopping mid-sentence. Emily staring at her shoes. Harper trying to calculate how many people would need to die for the evening to end well. And Richard… Richard looking at me like somebody had ripped open a wound directly in front of him.
It was Harper who broke the silence.
"Okay. New system. One year one of you comes. The next year the other one does. That way I can stop organizing tables like I’m negotiating a peace treaty."
Everyone laughed. Even me. Especially because it sounded like a joke.
Then it stopped being one.
It worked far too well. Separate birthdays. Divided Christmases. Strategically organized trips. Robert with Richard. Emily with me. Harper emotionally managing the disaster like it was a full-time job. And now she’s here, standing inside my trailer, saying the exact thing she never wanted to say out loud: the system no longer works.
"Harper, this is not going to work."
"Do you seriously need to ask that after watching us today?"
She tilts her head slightly.
"Precisely because of that."
"I saw you on the monitors, Y/N."
Her voice lowers slightly.
"And I’m not talking about acting chemistry."
Mistake. Because Harper detects emotional avoidance like a trained animal.
"I’m not starting anything. I’m saying that after ten years the two of you still react to each other like the rest of the world is interference."
"That doesn’t mean anything."
"Of course it means something."
She walks toward the trailer window. Looks out at the illuminated studio.
"Robert thinks you’re going to end up sleeping together before the first season is over."
"Robert also thought Jared Leto was going to start a cult."
"I still think that could happen," a voice says from outside.
Harper doesn’t even blink.
"You can come in, Robert. We already know you’ve been listening for five minutes."
The door opens immediately. Robert walks in holding a bag of chips and exactly zero shame.
"In my defense, I wasn’t listening. I was emotionally present."
"That doesn’t mean anything," I mutter.
"It means espionage with snacks," Harper answers.
Robert drops onto the chair in front of me like he belongs there. Honestly, he probably belongs there more than I do.
"I only came to get Harper," he says while opening the chips, "but now I want to stay for anthropological reasons."
Harper massages the bridge of her nose.
"See? This is exactly what I mean. We all keep orbiting around the two of you like you’re still an active bomb."
"Because technically you are."
"Thank you for the emotional support, Robert."
I let myself fall onto the small trailer couch. I’m tired. Too tired to keep pretending normality in front of people who have known me far too long. Harper watches me carefully.
That makes me lift my gaze immediately.
"That working with Richard is bringing things back up for you."
Silence. Robert stops eating. That’s new. I stare at the floor for a second before answering.
"Theo knows Richard exists."
"I don’t mean Wikipedia-wise."
The answer seems to surprise them slightly. Especially Robert.
"And he’s not having a homicidal crisis?"
"Theo’s a psychiatrist, Robert. Not an HBO character."
That earns a brief smile from him. But Harper keeps staring at me too intensely.
I think about the elevator call. About the way Theo never asks questions from ego. Only from concern.
"You’re starting to burn out again."
God. I deeply hate when he’s right.
"He said surviving something doesn’t mean you have to live through it again."
Robert falls silent. Harper too. Because both of them immediately understand the weight of that sentence. Theo never met Richard as a celebrity. Or as an actor. Or as a media problem. He met the aftermath. He met me months after the collapse. Insomnia. Anxiety. Panic attacks disguised as productivity. He met me when I stopped eating properly and started writing songs like hemorrhages, and he still chose to stay.
That makes everything worse. Much worse. Because Theo doesn’t compete with Richard. That’s exactly the problem. Theo belongs to another world. Stable routines. Ordinary silence. Real breakfasts. People who don’t turn emotions into audiovisual content.
Richard is still Richard.
"Okay. I’m about to say something horrible."
Robert raises a finger again.
"No, your specialty is making situations unnecessarily worse."
She ignores him before looking back at me.
"I think Theo is probably the best person you could possibly be with."
That leaves me motionless.
Harper finally sits down across from me.
"But the two of you never actually finished anything."
The air inside the trailer changes immediately.
Robert sets the chips down on the table.
"No, enough. I’ve spent ten years watching this."
She looks directly at me.
"You didn’t break up. You collapsed."
Nobody speaks. Because once again she’s right. Richard and I never had a final adult conversation. There was no closure. There was loss. Silence. Distance. And then survival.
That is not the same thing.
"Harper," I murmur finally, "even if you were right, what exactly am I supposed to do with that?"
"I’m not telling you to get back together with Richard. God forbid. I’m just saying pretending there’s nothing there isn’t working anymore either."
"The entire set can feel it."
That makes me tense all over again.
Robert grimaces awkwardly.
"Nothing specific. It’s just… people talk."
He exchanges a quick glance with Harper. Bad sign.
"That you look like people who were already in love once."
The silence afterward lasts too long. Because that is exactly the kind of observation impossible to deny. Harper intervenes again before I panic.
"Nobody knows anything real. They just think you have incredible chemistry."
The word is starting to feel insulting. Such an elegant way to name a decade of emotional ruins.
"Sam is obsessed," Robert continues. "He thinks he found television gold."
Of course he does. Naturally. A director looking at authentic pain and calling it cinematic quality. Very Hollywood of him. I rest my elbows on my knees. Cover my face for a second.
"I can’t do this and survive a party together too."
Harper immediately leans forward.
"Why are you so determined about this?"
Then she finally says it. The full truth.
"Because I’m tired of feeling like I have to choose between the two of you just to stay friends with both of you."
That hits harder than expected. Because I never thought much about the cost for everyone else. Emily organizing strategic dinners. Robert avoiding specific names. Harper editing guest lists for a decade. Everyone adapting themselves around our inability to exist in the same room without tension.
"I don’t want to keep doing emotional shared custody," she says more quietly. "I want both of you under the same roof again. Even if it’s just for one night."
The sentence hangs between us. Robert lowers his gaze. So do I. Because suddenly it no longer sounds ridiculous.
Harper’s phone vibrates on the table.
Then lets out a dry laugh.
"And speaking of the devil…"
"Yeah. He says: ‘Did she survive or is she still planning to murder me?’"
I can’t stop myself from smiling.
Harper immediately points at me.
"That. Exactly that. That’s the problem."
"I have no idea what you’re talking about."
The phone vibrates again. Harper reads the next message and smiles wider.
"‘Tell her I promise not to discuss traumatic feelings before dessert.’"
Robert bursts out laughing. I deeply hate that I want to laugh too. Because there it is again — the real disaster:
The way Richard still manages to enter a room even when he isn’t physically inside it.
Harper slowly puts the phone away.
"Friday. Eight thirty. Both of you are going."
And for the first time all night I understand something worse than fear.
Part of me already knows I’m going to say yes.
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